


i have walked a stair of swords

by Timballisto



Series: clarke and lexa vs the world [21]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 2x15 spoilers, Angst, Clexa, F/F, season finale spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-17 12:15:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3529046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Timballisto/pseuds/Timballisto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"Despair is deep. An abyss that swallows dreams. A wall at the worlds end. Behind it I await death. Because all our work has come to this."</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> <br/>Clarke has forgotten how to be weak.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i have walked a stair of swords

Mount Weather falls.

Lexa hears about it days afterward, her scouts at the edge of the no-mans land set by her truce reporting back with tales of a river of people flowing out of the tunnels and back to the safety of Camp Jaha.

Mount Weather falls and they return with awe in their voices when they speak the name Clarke kom Skaikru.

A year later, when Clarke stands at the gates of Polis, Lexa can hardly recognize her.

Her eyes are old, her face chapped and dirty, her hair ragged but braided back- but it is Clarke, beneath the sorrow that drapes over her shoulders. She looks so old.

“Clarke.” Lexa says, stiffly. She swallows hard, her throat suddenly dry.

“Lexa.” Clarke croaks. There are circles under her eyes, dark bruises. She makes an attempt at a smile and her face fights it, as if the gesture is too foreign for her muscles to obey.

Behind Lexa’s back, the crowd that had gathered in the shadow of the open gates began to murmur to themselves, peering over the wall formed by Lexa’s guard to get a good look at the stranger. Clarke seems to shrink at the scrutiny, her eyes flicking from the growing crowd to Lexa’s face apprehensively.

“We should talk.” Clarke said, finally.

Lexa nodded shortly, barking an order at her guard as she turned. Clarke fell in step beside her as she always had in Ton DC, and that gesture of respect is what tips off the crowd.

“It’s Clarke kom Skaikru!” someone yells, and Lexa grits her teeth as the crowd erupts. They’re cheering, and yelling- Clarke looks as if she’s seconds from bolting back through the open gate and out of the press of people.

Lexa slips an arm around Clarke’s side, and pushes the tide of people back. 

xXx

“If you are looking for answers, I can’t give you that.” Lexa said heavily.

They are in Lexa’s quarters, and Clarke marvels at the novelty of a roof over her head, and the feeling of being clean. Her hair has been braided away from her face, and she almost looks her age.

“I know.” Clarke said, but the tremble in her hands and the way her eyes droop with exhaustion say otherwise. She’d hoped…

Clarke is an Achilles who’d outlived her Troy, and she’s so tired. She has the blood of so many people on her hands that there isn’t enough space on her skin to map them all. She’d counted their bodies as she’d laid them to rest, one by one, in four hundred graves at the mouth of the mountain until the smell of rot had left her nose and her hands were smeared with blood.

There had been twenty smaller then the rest.

“I hated you for it, you know. For putting me in that position.” Clarke murmured, her eyes out of focus as she stared across the room towards Lexa. “But I hated myself more.”

Lexa stays silent, but her throat burns.

Clarke chuckles and it’s a dull, broken thing. “I couldn’t look at them. I couldn’t stand their gratitude, not when I-” Clarke gasped, shakily. “I can’t look them in the eyes, anymore.” Her eyes burned with tears, and she pressed her palms against them roughly.

“Have you wept for them, Clarke?” Lexa asked softly. Her hands reach out, and touch delicately at Clarke’s elbows.

“Love is weakness.” Clarke gasped, her shoulders shaking with repressed sobs. Her shoulders are brittle, and Lexa knows that with another touch, Clarke would break.

“Yes.” Lexa agreed. Her eyes are solemn and her voice grave. “But there is no weakness is weeping for the dead, after the call for strength is over.” Hesitantly, Lexa slid her arms around Clarke’s shoulders. “It’s over, Clarke.”

A harsh sound ripped it’s way out of Clarke’s throat, and she almost collapsed against Lexa, her face pressed hard into Lexa’s shoulder. Clarke’s arms slid around Lexa’s middle, her hands fisting tight in the material of Lexa’s shirt.

And Clarke wept for the dead.


End file.
